Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1887-01-03
A SP00E.
What 1t Is and What 1t Is Not-Some Which
seve Been Seen.

save Boon Seen.
The London Saturday Review, having
published an article on "Spoo kical Re-
SEARCH" has been beseiged by cores
pondents DESTROYS of knowing VIII at
spook is, and it answers:
Philol0gically, of course, there is no
difficulty about the matter. The Greek
word Psyche is familiar to many people
who 90 not know Greek, and the inge-
Nous theory has been put forward that
the Germans thought well to
adopt it into their language, and,
having well-grounded dislike to a word
beginning with ps, they simply transposed
the consonants. Moreover, they slightly
specialized the meaning, as cons antlY
happens when word is borrowed by oge
language rom another.
Thus Psyche, soul, or spirit, became
Spuk, spirit, apparitiOn, or ghost. Fin
ally the inhabitants OF the Western states
of America, in order to prove the cOsmo-
politau liberality which is one of their
proudest boasts, learned the word from
their German fellow-citiZens, and again
slightly altered the spelling in Or
der to preserve the sound; SO that Spook,
the daughter of Spuk, and granddaughter
or Psyche, became, and was, and still Is,
q recognized word wherever the English
language is spoken, and the normal and
orthodox generic word for ghosts and
things ghUstly throughout great part OF
the American continent.
The interrogation, what is spOo6!
requires for its full and proper answer
declaration as to what a SpoOk is. That,
-,l1N, HI
not be given within measurable
time. But some Information on
the subj ct, stating afffrmatively
what is a spOok, is available for all, and
can perhaps be set forth with peculiar
advantage by those who have watched
with kindly interes' the recent Outburst
of spookical activity. Suppose, then,
10 begin with, simple instance,
that you see omefody who isn't
there What you see is spock. The
person whom you see where he isn't may
be dead or alive, and may be in the next
room or on the other side of the world,
but what you see is a spook all the same.
Nor does it matter how he came. He
NAV be Il stranger, in Eastern attire, and
may begin TO twaddle about planes, che
las, gurus, adopts sDd higher selves,
and offer to "materialize" some article OF
tlifing pecuniary value. In that case
he is the astral principle OF
somebody, probably Mahatms, whose
bodily priuciple-which means his body
is living motionleSs in trance at some
distant spot. But he is still spooE. Or,
aaaiO. he may be somebody whom You
know perfectly well and to whom you owe
money, and who is at that very
moment having his threat cut
in cannibal island. He is sn"ok, too.
The one is occult, the ether is tu.cpataed,
hut for practical purposes there Is no qlf-
ference between them. The apparition of
person who has been dead for some
time is equally spook.
1t is common knowledge that a great
many spo0ks invert the proverbial duty
of little girls, and are heard and not seen.
Information derived from spookical re-
search shows clearly that they are
sometimes felt, suggests that they
have been smelt, and leads the pro-
fessors of that branch OF learning TO eN-
press guarded hope that some day they
may be tasted The invisible, audi
bic spook presents some diff
culties of his own in the way
of definition. a man hears sound
which is not made. z. the sound of
human song where nc lun4u laluyA 10
singing. Does he hear sound being
made oy a spook, or is the sound he hears
itse,f q spook? The question is one Of
spookeful research.
For the laymen it enough to know that
in either case the steiner may accur-
ately, and. according to the common use
of language, be said to "he,r spook."
Dogs, carriages, balls OF lire, mus
iCal chords. drum beats, and raps on
the furniture may also be spooks. 1t
is hard to recognize rap as spook, be-
cause SO many thousands of raps are not
spooks at all, but are produced in the Or
binary way by mechanical appliances. Still
It'll probab that some sort Of raps ,espec-
Tally on windows at the dead OF night,
may be spooks. But OF course sheet
and turnip, or smudge of phosphorus
on the wal, are not spooks. Whatever
else your spook is or is not, he must be
genuine.